


The Mardi Gras Effect

by stratumgermanitivum, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (consensual) Amputation, (consensual) Rough Sex, (consensual) Self-Cannibalism, (consensual) Sex Tapes, (consensual) Sex during Surgery, (consensual) Surgery Without Anaesthetics, (consensual) Surgery Without Sedation, (consensual) Torture Tapes, (consensual) voyeurism, Bottom!Will, Consensual Nonconsent, Darkweb, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dogs, Fluff, Graphic Violence, M/M, Mentions of True Crime (victims and killers)., Mentions of surgery, doting, graphic cannibalism, mentions of suicidal ideation, top!Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24671848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stratumgermanitivum/pseuds/stratumgermanitivum, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: Trawling through cannibal forums on the darkweb, Will offers himself up as a victim with the caveat that he takes part in his own dismemberment and consumption. When a man answers his post and catches Will’s interest, he thinks they’ll be perfect for each other.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 110
Kudos: 274
Collections: 2020 Eat The Rude Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the Eat The Rude Big Bang 2020! We were so lucky to get to work with the lovely Alex, who created some sexy art for us! No dogs or cannibals are harmed in the process of this story, but Will loses a few limbs.
> 
> See end notes for links to all true crime mentions/references! We only used names as hints, we did not talk about the victims with disrespect (we hope), if you feel we have, please let us know.

**THREAD: Lapotka Seeking Miewes**

federalbureauofinstigation _[17 hours ago]_

_Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> Seeking man to torture and devour me at his leisure.  
> No qualms regarding my end; would prefer process to include cannibalism in which I can partake.  
> Fresh or fried is dealer’s choice.  
> Serious inquiries only.
> 
> ASL: 35/M/USA

[REPLY]

* * *

tentapeen _[16 hours ago]_

_RE: Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> U want someone 2 eat ur cock?

[REPLY]

* * *

slavemaster _[16 hours ago]_

_RE: Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> Want sex/kink beforehand? PM me, have some ideas you’re bound (hahaha) to love lol v. interested PM me pls will hurt you real good

[REPLY]

* * *

gooddoctor _[10 hours ago]_

_RE: Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> Were you seeking a similarly documented demise, @federalbureauofinstrigation?

[REPLY]

* * *

federalbureauofinstrigation @gooddoctor _[4 hours ago]_

_RE: Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> Seeking effectiveness of Lapotka with the endgame of Miewes.  
> Documentation up to the chosen candidate, it hardly matters to me once I’m gone.

[REPLY]

* * *

gooddoctor @federalbureauofinstigation _[3 hours ago]_

_RE: Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> Preferred level of pain?

[REPLY]

* * *

federalbureauofinstigation @gooddoctor _[3 hours ago]_

_RE: Lapotka Seeking Miewes_

> I want to feel everything.

[REPLY]

* * *

* * *

Will had no patience for time wasters of any kind; this was far from his first time on the forum and considering the things he’d heard from Laim Hart in the Internet Homicide division in the cafeteria he was entirely underwhelmed.

To be fair, he supposed, every chatroom and social media site had its bucket of shit through which to dig for jewels. Fetlife was the same. 4chan. Now Cannibal Cafe. Whoever had come up with that stroke of genius was hopefully no longer part of the server, but to give them credit at least they’d been entirely upfront about what their server was about.

Cannibals eating. Cannibals eating socially. Cannibals seeking meals.

Simple. Effective.

Effective if he could find someone to have him for dinner, Will thought bitterly. He’d been looking for eight days now, half into a bottle of Johnny Red and half out of a can of Baltika, which tasted like battery acid and did its job of keeping Will uncomfortable admirably. He’d been looking and he’d been coming up dry. Maybe he needed to ask Liam about another active chat and try his luck there.

Because he’d hit dud account after dud account so far. He wondered how many teenagers were behind the names populating the server. He wondered how many were women. He waited eagerly for his phone to ring so he could listen to some halfwit whose voice hadn’t even broken explain to him just how he was going to _eat Will alive_.

He was ready.

Bring it the fuck on.

The clock read eighteen past ten.

He hadn’t slept in three days.

Will had been braced so firmly on the edge of his seat that he nearly fell out of it when the phone finally rang, the caller ID claiming a blocked number. The armchair wobbled ominously; no doubt threatening to give out like the rest of Will’s life. 

To Will’s mortification, it was his _own_ voice that cracked when he answered, a tremulous, too-eager “Hello, Doctor.”

A breath, the moment between an uncertain fold and an all-in bid, and then a warm, thickly accented voice replied. _“Hello, Lapotka.”_

A thrill ran through Will, a rush of heat from the tips of his toes all the way through him. Somehow, he knew that he’d found what he was looking for. 

The good doctor was, as it turned out, an actual doctor. _“A surgeon, to be precise. We can draw this out for as long as you would prefer. I assure you, I have the resources and the skills necessary to bring you the pain you’re seeking, or to ease you out in comfort if it becomes too much for you.”_

“That won’t be necessary,” Will assured him, “I’m no stranger to pain.”

 _“Well, best to be prepared_ ,” the doctor said, sounding amused and not entirely convinced. 

“I want this,” Will assured him hastily, “I’ve thought it through. I know what I’m getting into. I am _uniquely_ prepared to know what I’m getting into.”

A hum, thoughtful. Will held his breath. _“You’ll forgive me a bit of trepidation, I’m sure.”_

“My name is Will Graham,” Will told him. “William Harrison Graham. You can look me up. We can video chat, or I’ll video chat and you can watch. You can have my ID. My social security number.” He wasn’t going to need them, after all, and Will had no fear of being caught in a sting. He was too far gone for fear, first of all, and second of all, of the two of them, Will was technically not doing anything illegal. 

Another loaded, curious pause. Will was beginning to feel less like the doctor doubted him, and more like he felt anticipation would better season the meat. 

_“There are a number of steps I’d like to take before we meet,”_ the doctor said, _“most importantly, I would like to put you on a diet. I will, of course, pay for the groceries, if you are as forthcoming with your bank accounts as you are your personal data.”_

Will snorted. “There isn’t much to take, if you were considering clearing them out before the main event.”

Through the phone, the doctor made a sound that warmed Will to the bones. It wasn’t a purr, per se, it was something even deeper, more predatory. Already he was prepared to give up his bank details along with everything else. Hell, if the man wanted him to eat nothing but artichoke hearts for a week Will would do it. As long as he followed through on the rest, and gave Will what _he_ wanted.

 _“I’ve no desire to strip you of your finances, Will,”_ the tone suggested he was more than happy to strip Will of other things, however. _“I will send you a meal plan for a week, to begin. The finances to cover the ingredients needed. Would that be amenable?”_

“Will a week be enough to fatten me up, doctor?”

“ _Quite the contrary. The food I have in mind has nothing to do with gaining or losing fat, rather it impacts the taste of the meat.”_

Will settled back into his seat as though he were being told a story, a thrum of warmth covering him in a comforting embrace as arousal hummed beneath his skin. “Acorns and oysters?”

Another of those strange purrs from the doctor. _“Have you done your research, Will?”_

“I’ve seen through the eyes of some curious individuals, doctor. Just putting my useless knowledge to the test for the last time.”

_“All knowledge has its uses. But I’m sure we can find you something better suited for the palate.”_

* * *

They Skyped a week after the first conversation. Will first, carefully settling into view on the bed, holding up the salad he was working on. 

“All on the approved list,” he told the empty screen, “Acorns included.”

“Your pictures didn’t do you justice.”

They’d spoken several times over the week, but entirely through online resources, ones where conversation was never saved. Hearing the doctor’s voice again made Will shiver. 

“I cleaned up for you,” Will joked. It wasn’t actually a joke. He’d combed his hair for the first time in weeks. “And if you got your information from TattleCrime, Freddie Lounds purposefully takes awful pictures of me.”

“That would be her loss, then.”

Will flushed, pleased. “I’ve been a good boy,” he said with a laugh. “I threw out anything that wasn’t on the list. I made my arrangements months ago.” Before he’d decided on this, back when it had just been suicide he was planning. “I’ve done everything I can to show you I am who I say I am. When do I get to meet you?”

“I had hoped to make plans for that this evening,” the doctor replied, and Will almost choked on his meal.

“Plans to meet,” he asked, “or plans on when to meet?”

“The latter, I’m afraid,” came the amused reply. “I’ve yet to prepare the house for your arrival and I would hate to leave you waiting longer than necessary.”

“Appreciated,” Will replied, opening his mouth deliberately wide before chewing another forkful of the meal he’d been assigned. It felt strangely liberating to be taking orders this way. He’d thought it would feel patronizing, but it was quite the opposite. Nothing like the barked commands of Jack Crawford scratching down his back like nails on a chalkboard.

“Perhaps Friday next?” The doctor added after a comfortable pause in which Will finished his mouthful. “Early evening.”

“So you can have me for dinner?” Will asked, smirking as he considered the terrible pun that drew a pained noise from the blank screen. He wondered if the man behind the voice was just as charming and easy to read as his clicked consonants and warm accent was. “I’ll see if I can pencil you in.”

“I would hate to interfere with a busy schedule.”

“I’ll move some things around, don’t worry.”

Next Friday. It seemed so close, but Will knew it would feel like forever. 

He wanted to ask if the doctor was into men, if he would care if being consumed got Will a little hot under the collar. Will had never even seen the man, but he dreamed at night of searing pain and hands all over him. 

The things Will saw and the job everyone wanted him to do were too much to handle, but the end of it all was too perfect to be real.

* * *

Will’s dreams had always been dark, bloody. From his first hazy recollections as a child, to college wet dreams, to the night terrors that plagued his adult life. Viscera followed him from one plane to the next, slipping through his fingers, pouring from open wounds in his belly. 

The first time his mind had eroticized the experience, he’d been impossibly, horrifically drunk.

Will’s college experience had been less socially involved than most, but he still shared the one thing all exhausted young adults did: an unhealthy love of hard liquor.

He’d been moping about an anatomy test, reciting muscle groups from memory, tracing his limbs with the tip of his pencil. He was going to pass. He always did. He stressed about it anyway, drinking late into the night until weariness finally overtook him and he’d passed out at his desk.

He’d dreamed of sharp fangs, of bites along his inner thighs. Someone who told him how sweet he was, how his flesh would nourish them for days. They left blood in the wake of their kisses, tore through muscle with nuzzles of affection.

In the end, they’d wrapped one hand around Will’s cock and the other around his heart. It had still been beating when they bit into it.

Will had awoken terrified, and soaked through with sweat, but also undeniably, unbearably hard.

* * *

The doctor picked Will up at his home, where a trap would have been visible from miles away. He stepped out of his car in an honest-to-god suit, and Will was almost instantly lost. 

“Did you pack?” He asked, in that thick accent that had haunted Will. 

Will held up a small duffle bag. “Comfortable clothes for a few days of feasting, as instructed.”

“Good boy.” The doctor took his bag and opened the passenger door for him, a perfect gentleman considering the purpose of the voyage. 

“Do I get a name?” Will asked as they left, slightly pink. “Or do you get off on being called Doctor?”

When the man laughed, Will noticed his teeth were a little crooked. His entire body shivered at the thought of those teeth against his skin and he forced his eyes to the dashboard again, bringing a hand to his face to chew absently at the side of his thumbnail.

“Hannibal,” the doctor finally replied. “Doctor Hannibal Lecter.”

Will tested the name out against his tongue and found it tasted as good as it sounded. They were quiet for a time, just the hum of the Bentley beneath them, the empty road seemingly swallowed up by the bumper. There would be no street lights until they hit the main road and Will felt like he was floating in a dream. He’d had dreams like that before, dreams of seeing his house as something of an ark in the middle of a foggy uncertainty as his toes froze to the ground beneath him.

“I’m not sure what one says to their devourer,” Will said honestly, after a while. “It might surprise you but I’ve never done this before.”

Hannibal glanced at him, eyes narrowing in pleasure. “No? What an honor for me, then.”

“To be the first person to kill me? In this life, I suppose.”

“Do you believe in reincarnation, Will?”

“I’m not sure,” Will admitted. “I’ve never given much thought to what happens _after_. I’ve seen enough victims of circumstance, and victims of premeditated horror to hope that there is nothing after.”

“And for you, it would bring peace,” Hannibal surmised. “No horrors left for you but your own.”

“It’s not a horror for me.” Will turned in his seat, giving himself a better view of the man. He suited his voice. Tall, broad. Thoroughly put together. “You’re giving me a dream.”

“Do you regularly dream of blood and pain?”

Will closed his eyes. The night before, he’d dreamed of Hannibal fucking him, ripping arteries from his throat with his teeth at the very peak of their pleasure. “Among other things.”

Hannibal’s smile was understated, but his good humor was clear. “I would have this go well for you, dear Will. Tell me, is there a sexual component to these fantasies?”

Will flushed. He supposed he’d been obvious, but he hadn’t expected to be called out so quickly. “Not if you’re only doing it to appease me.”

“Both Lapotka and Brandes experienced sexual gratification before their deaths,” Hannibal pointed out. “I’d assumed the references would imply the same for you.”

Will snorted softly, easing his cheek against the headrest of his seat. “Do you have any idea how few people even knew who I was talking about beyond the skin-deep Google search those names would come back with?”

“I’ve been in such forums for many months,” Hannibal replied, just as amused. “I’m afraid I’m no stranger to the ignorant.”

“Have you had anyone else over for dinner before?”

“No one worth enjoying,” Hannibal replied, a brief flick of his gaze to Will was enough for Will to close his eyes on a deliberately slow sigh again.

“Yes,” he said finally. “There is a sexual component to this for me. At least from what my mind has conjured.”

“You’ve an incredible mind, Will, I would trust what it’s telling you.”

“I’ve never trusted my mind,” Will laughed. “Not once. I’ve made others’ careers on their trust in it.”

“You have a very impressive record.”

“Do I?” Will drew a hand through his hair and rolled his head with a groan until his neck clicked and he rested back again. He couldn’t sit still, he was never any good at it. But now, in a car with one of the most beautiful men he had ever laid eyes on, the man who would bring him what only his fevered mind had allowed him to imagine, he couldn’t stop fidgeting to save his life.

Good thing he didn’t want that.

“Is there, for you?” He asked after a while. “A sexual component?”

“Before you?” Hannibal asked, with a telling quirk of his lips. “No.”

Will’s heart beat heavy in his throat. “And after me?”

Hannibal’s hand came to rest on Will’s knee. “I would very much like to see where we can take this.”

* * *

Hannibal’s house was large and imposing. The door locked behind Will with a final ‘click.’

He felt like he should have been more affected. Hannibal couldn’t let him leave, after all, not that Will had changed his mind. That had been his last look at the sky, his last moment outside, his last breath of fresh air. 

But all Will felt was eagerness. He turned to Hannibal and found a matching hungry gaze in his eyes. 

_Hunger_. 

“No one worth enjoying,” Will repeated. “I’m the first to come willingly, aren’t I?”

“You are the most vibrant being to ever have a place at my table,” Hannibal said in lieu of an answer. 

Will grinned. “That does it for you, doesn’t it? That I want this, that I sought you out. You want me because I want you.”

Hannibal reached for him, a gentle hand over his jaw, fingers grazing his cheek. He moved so slowly, so carefully. As though it was possible for Will to be scared away. 

Will gave in and kissed him, pulling him closer with a grip on his lapels. 

It had been months since Will had been touched by another human being. It had been years since someone had kissed him well enough for Will to kiss them back. It had been even longer since Will had felt his entire being set on fire with the desperate _need_ to have a person near him, in him, absolutely everywhere.

Hannibal kissed the same way he spoke; fluid and warm, hiding something raging and powerful just beneath the surface. Will wanted to tear that human suit away, to see the monster within. He wanted Hannibal to eat him alive, right then and there, he didn’t care how long it took. He wanted to taste himself on those lips when he kissed him again, wanted Hannibal to swallow the last breath he ever pushed from his lungs.

When he was eased back with a deliberate guiding palm, Will turned to nuzzle into it, breath trembling from him. It didn’t feel like a rejection, it didn’t feel like a mercy for the sake of mercy. It burned so much hotter.

Hannibal drew his thumb beneath Will’s eye, slipped his hand lower and moved the same digit over his lips and Will parted them for him, his own eyes hooded, already so entirely overcome with his need for this.

“Beautiful,” Hannibal whispered.

Will couldn’t help the smile that tilted his lips before he licked it away. “Dinner?”

Hannibal’s smile was wider this time, another hint of those teeth that bent almost like fangs against the ones next to them. It was as arousing as slowly undressing a lover, the brief show of a predator’s grace in a gentleman’s suit.

“Dinner,” Hannibal agreed, leaning close again to rest his nose against Will’s curls as he breathed him in, a low rumble of pleasure at the scent he found. “Dinner first.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re not just willing, you’re starving for it, aren’t you Will?” Hannibal asked him softly, and Will melted._

Dinner had been delicious, but it was dessert that had captured Will’s interest.

“You’ll have your own room, your own space,” Hannibal explained, showing Will the guest room. “Of course, it would be easier to keep an eye on your health and pain management if you were to join me in my own…”

It would also make it harder for Will to flee, but Will was going nowhere. He kept his bag in his hands, ignoring the dresser Hannibal indicated. 

“Show me yours.”

Hannibal’s smile was knowing. 

The master bedroom was huge, and immaculately decorated, Will was sure. He saw none of it, dropping his bag just inside the door and turning to throw himself at Hannibal again. He’d been heated and on edge since they first stepped into Hannibal’s home, and now he had a chance to be sated. 

Will hadn’t had a bucket list, but with a man like Hannibal at his fingertips, he would be remiss if he didn’t get a few rounds in before nothingness took him. 

Hannibal allowed him the hunger of it all, relished in it himself as he let Will tug and grab at him, his own motions restrained for the moment, for long enough that Will’s sounds became demanding and needy, eager and almost angry in how desperately he wanted,  _ needed _ this to happen.

And then Hannibal allowed a little more of his strength to show. 

Hands found Will’s curls and tugged hard enough to straighten them, one hand twisting them to tilt Will’s head back, the other drawing flat and teasing down Will’s throat, over his collarbones, his sternum, his stomach. Will was wearing a shirt and hoodie, nothing as fancy as how the doctor was dressed, and Hannibal sought his skin when he reached the hem of both, fingers slightly cooler than Will’s skin spreading up his belly and over his side.

“You’re not just willing, you’re starving for it, aren’t you Will?” Hannibal asked him softly, and Will  _ melted _ .

“Please,” Will breathed, soft and sweet into the quiet room. He’d been alone for so long. Now here was someone who not only  _ understood _ , but was going to give Will everything he’d been longing for. 

Hannibal nuzzled up under Will’s jaw, scraping his teeth along the tendons. “I’m going to take you to pieces,” he murmured, “I’m going to have my hands inside you while you watch.”

Will moaned. Hannibal hoisted him up with ease, laying him out on the bed and crawling over him, pinning him so easily beneath his weight. 

“I want you to taste yourself on me, Will. I want to watch you feed off your own essence.”

Will felt ripped open already. He shrugged out of his shirt and hoodie when prompted, shoving his pants down before he could be asked. Hannibal helped him strip with wandering hands, feeling out every inch of him. 

“Here, first, I should think,” Hannibal said, running his palm up over Will’s thigh, “A beautiful cut for our breakfast. But soon enough, Will, I’ll take the entire leg, one bit at a time.”

Will trembled beneath him, not from fear, but from an absolutely overwhelming sensation of being seen, being wanted for just what he was. Nothing more, nothing less, no gimmicks, no tricks.

He reached for the doctor and brought their mouths together again, drawing his knees up around Hannibal’s still-clothed form and letting his hands roam over his broad back. He was comfortably larger, certainly stronger, and Will felt more and more confident with his decision every second he was here. He would have come to terms with being eaten by a nobody. Now he knew he would be notorious, never forgotten, once Hannibal consumed him.

“Promise me something,” Will gasped, hands slipping between them to work Hannibal’s shirt and tie loose as he spoke. “Promise me that the one part of myself I can’t eat, the one part I won’t live for, you’ll eat raw.”

Hannibal made a sound, something so achingly intimate that Will immediately kissed it from him, immediately stole it away to keep for himself for however long he had. He shoved, uncaring, at Hannibal’s shirt and jacket, no regard as to how expensive it was, how he could ruin it this way. He wanted to feel Hannibal against him and he wanted it  _ now _ .

He ran his hands over Hannibal’s chest, over the hair there, and moaned, arching his entire body up to rub against him.

“Promise me.”

Hannibal pressed him back down, holding Will in place so he could suck bruises down along his shoulder. “I promise,” he whispered, biting over a reddened mark, “none of you will go to waste, Will. I have so many plans.”

Will couldn’t wait anymore. He fought with Hannibal’s belt, laughing as their hands stumbled over each other’s in an attempt to strip him faster. Hannibal pulled lubrication from the bedside table, but no condoms; Will had nothing to fear, and one of Hannibal’s requirements had been clean test results. 

“Did you know?” Will gasped as Hannibal worked a finger into him, slow but insistent. “When we set this up, did you know this was where it was going?”

“You appealed to me in your eagerness.” Another finger, fucking him in short, measured thrusts, easing him into the sensation. “But it wasn’t until I saw you and your honesty that I suspected.”

Will’s smile split wide and he bit his lip as he arched into Hannibal’s hand. He hadn’t slept with men before. And honestly, it didn’t particularly matter. If this was - and it would be - the only man Will ever slept with he would die very much contented. He spread his legs wider for Hannibal’s seeking fingers and dropped a hand to lazily stroke himself as he watched him through his lashes.

Hannibal looked even more beautiful this way, devouring Will with his eyes not like he was non-human, but like he was above humanity entirely. Hannibal looked like he was worshiping what he was seeing.

“It’s a relief to be understood,” Will sighed, brows furrowing as Hannibal twisted his hand just a little and found something within Will that sparked white behind his eyes, pushed his body into a bridge off the bed, hands seeking for Hannibal’s to hold on as he moaned shamelessly into the room.

“God, oh  _ God _ , do that again, Hannibal, please -”

“Wait,” was all Hannibal said, bending to suck another possessive mark to Will’s skin, drawing his tongue up the line of his jaw after to nose in the small curls behind his ear. “Wait, and I will give you everything.”

”God.” Considering how little of his life was left, Will was certainly eager to rush it. He tried to rock his hips into Hannibal’s hand, but Hannibal pulled out of him with a teasing shake of his head. 

“Patience. The things we want are all the sweeter if we give the anticipation time to build.”

“I promise,” Will said, throwing a leg around one of Hannibal’s, “I’ll be just as sweet for you no matter when you take me.”

Hannibal hid a laugh against Will’s skin, pushing his thighs apart and lining himself up. “I already have you.”

Whatever smart retort Will would have come up with was lost in a gasp as Hannibal eased into him, a steady fullness that threatened to overwhelm him. Will reached back to dig his fingernails into the pillows, drawing a deep breath in through his nose as he tried to adjust. 

Will was accustomed to pain. He had been stabbed and beaten, he had been burned, he had been shot at and cut with glass, he’d fallen hard and dislocated limbs. This was nothing like any of those. This was a hum, an underlying threat of more with the promise of pleasure just beneath.

Will had never used pain in sex before. He’d never had anyone to try it with.

But this, just this - the intimacy of being so close, the impossibility of their joining, the way Hannibal breathed his name and turned Will’s head with the sweetest kiss to his cheek that almost made Will  _ sob _ with how good it felt…

This was pain of a very different sort.

And Will slowed his desperate tugging, slowed his need to rush. Because if this could feel better, and he knew it would feel better, it would feel exquisite, he wanted it to last as long as his body could take it.

Will dropped one hand to his hair to tug it, something for his hands to do as their bodies eased together and learned each other. His other he pressed to his eyes, only to have it gently taken by Hannibal’s and pressed to the bed again.

“Stay here with me,”

“Where would I go?” Will murmured, but he didn’t try to hide himself again, he turned to face Hannibal properly, to accept the kiss he gave him, and tensed his body experimentally to feel Hannibal groan against him.

Hannibal pulled back and pushed into him again, slow enough for Will to feel every inch of him, every bit of motion. The ache built, a burning need that flooded Will completely. 

Hannibal lifted Will’s hips from the bed, changing the angle so his next thrust grazed over the spot from before, sending a shuddering pleasure down Will’s spine. 

“H-Hannibal…”

One hand gripped Will’s hip. The other found the hand Hannibal had pressed into the mattress and twined their fingers together, holding Will down as Hannibal began to truly  _ move.  _

“Hannibal!”

Rough, quick. Hannibal’s teeth against his throat, nipping and tugging bruises to the surface. Will clung, body shaking as Hannibal fucked him, sliding his grip down to Will’s thigh to open him up wider. 

_ God _ it was like Will’s dreams, and any moment now, any moment, there would be pain and blood and gore, and just the thought of it alone made Will shiver with the desperate need to come. He’d never been so entirely overcome by another human being before, he’d never been so entirely taken with someone.

He clung to Hannibal and bent his knees to hold him closer, and drew his free hand down Hannibal’s chest where he could reach, dropping his palm after to rub his own aching cock, fingers just brushing where he and Hannibal joined.

It was obscene, the sounds Will made. It was obscene how he arched into this, so desperate for more and for this to not stop. Will was shameless in enjoying himself. He whimpered Hannibal’s name, he begged for his cock, he begged for his mouth. He whimpered with need when Hannibal lay him flat to the bed again, near-sobbing with how close he was to orgasm and how he wanted Hannibal to fuck it out of him.

“ _ Please _ -” he whined, teeth gritted, eyes closed tight as Hannibal drew his teeth over Will’s throat and bit down on his shoulder. “Fuck, Hannibal,  _ fuck _ -”

Will’s pleasure overtook him like a wave; he felt like he wouldn’t ever be able to breathe again. His entire body  _ sang _ with how good it felt, how harshly Hannibal was claiming him, how primal this was, how it entirely outdid even Will’s own erotic fantasies.

Hannibal fucked him through it, until pleasure gave way to a sensation of too-much that Will didn’t want to let go of. 

He could feel Hannibal’s orgasm like his own, a steady pulse deep inside him. He  _ leaked _ when Hannibal pulled out, so slick and messy that Will couldn’t help but run a finger over his stretched and abused entrance. 

Hannibal was enraptured by the sight, still panting breathlessly. “We may have to break out the morphine after all,” he said. “I don’t think I could stop myself if your pain kept us from having that again.”

“Don’t,” Will replied, shaking his head. “Have me as many times as you want to. Don’t give me the morphine.”

Hannibal kissed his cheek, so light and quick compared to their heavy hands before. “We’ll see,” he said. “Anesthetic would affect the meat. You can have both, your pain as I cut into you and whatever peace I can offer afterwards.”

Will groaned, stretching languidly and wincing when he moved and found that things ached he didn’t even know could ache, or should. He felt incredible. He felt  _ alive _ .

“How many times have you done it before?” Will asked him, settling in to bed more comfortably, looking up at Hannibal still. He didn’t reach to cover himself, he didn’t reach to bring Hannibal closer; just let him look for the moment. Will couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him at all.

“You’re my first.”

“No,” Will shook his head, tilting it up and tugging lazily at some of the wayward curls. “Not people you’ve brought home to kill. I’m the first in that. How many have you killed?”

Hannibal considered him, that expression on his face once more that Will couldn’t read, that felt like awe and wariness combined. He supposed it was only fair that he got to glimpse even a little of the doctor before he gave himself entirely to him. Who would he tell, after all? He’d not brought a cellphone, he’d left everything bar a few changes of clothes at his house, to be found when it was found, if it was found.

“Many,” Hannibal answered after a while, moving to settle in beside Will, resting on his elbow to look over him. “It seems ingracious to not have an exact number but I can’t remember.”

“Did you eat them all?”

“Some,” Hannibal nodded, drawing the flat of his palm over Will’s chest, over his stomach to rub softly there, just missing the mess Will had made of himself. “It is not an obsession.”

“Just a compulsion, then.”

“A hobby,” Hannibal amended, his smile splitting wide when Will snorted.

“A hobbyist,” Will teased. “How  _ does _ a guy get so lucky? I wonder…”

He stretched again, shifting a little closer to Hannibal, bringing up a hand to rest his cheek against as he faced him. For a while he let Hannibal look askance, then he licked his lips and elaborated.

“I lectured at Quantico. Behavioural Science. You know that much, you’ve looked me up.” Hannibal nodded agreement. “I wonder if you ever came up in our cold case lectures.”

Hannibal’s smile grew more amused. Will blinked. “Or the cases still open for active investigation.” At Hannibal’s pleased expression, Will ran through what he knew. 

“Surgeon,” he said slowly, “Cannibal. Physically strong. Enough bodies to have lost count.” Will closed his eyes, picturing. The tableaux that Jack had dragged him to, bodies impaled on deer heads and antlers, flowers blooming where a human’s organs should be; people later found to be far from innocent made into art they could never live up to in life. Pieces slowly fell together, and he smiled. “Ripper.”

After a moment of silence, Hannibal’s mouth covered his, hungry and claiming. Will laughed into the kiss. 

“You are impossible,” Hannibal told him. “That I should find you, brilliant and beautiful and eager to give yourself to me…”

“You have to share,” Will reminded him, hiding a grin behind his hand. “I want a taste too.”

“Of course. But there’s so much of you to give, and you’ve offered it up so easily.”

Will hummed, considering the words, before pressing closer to nuzzle against Hannibal’s throat, uncaring for the mess he’d made if he shifted to his side. Easy. Will had never been an easy person. He was easy when people gave him what he asked them for, when they were clear, when they entered a conversation instead of an argument.

“I suppose if I had to be easy for anyone, it would be the Chesapeake Ripper,” he replied, amused. “You know, I told Jack Crawford it would be someone poised. Someone graceful. He was determined to look for a brute in all those tableaux you left behind for him to find. God, I’d give a lot to be a fly on the wall for the moment he finds out who you are. You’d be long gone.”

Will sounded almost sleepy, almost drugged. He was floating in a haze like nothing he’d felt before. He felt, entirely unironically, so safe with Hannibal nosing gently against his hair. Like an animal leaving its scent on a mate. Like someone claiming their territory.

“I assure you, I’m prepared for such an event.”

“I know you are,” Will said. He rolled completely onto his side, tucking himself against Hannibal’s body, heedless of mess and sweat. “You would have to be, to risk it all on me.”

“You offered me a rare gift.” Hannibal’s hand came up to cup the back of his neck, fingers twining in the curls at the nape. Will sighed, the touch sending him further down into a relaxed exhaustion. He missed sleep. He missed quiet and peace. 

“M’not gonna use my room.”

“I had hoped you wouldn’t.” Hannibal’s lips pressed against Will’s forehead, his smile obvious. “Get some rest, Will. We need to be up early to prepare for breakfast.”

* * *

Will dreamed of antlers, black as onyx, growing out of a form seven feet tall and expressionless. Its eyes were white, without pupil, its mouth molded just a little crooked, just a little jagged. The creature tilted its head and Will copied the motion. It reached out and Will reached back, their hands meeting in the middle, palm to palm black fingers too long for Will to measure against, inhuman and clawed.

And then Will pushed  _ through _ the hand, felt his arm slip into the creature’s, felt himself being consumed by it, absorbed into it.

He should have panicked, should have woken in a cold sweat, should have  _ screamed _ , but instead he waited, until they were chest to chest, and opened his mouth to the marble-cold lips that met his own as their ribs collided and shattered, melding together in the most primal, bestial way, as two beings became one being, as empathy melted to indifference.

* * *

Will slept soundly.

He slept as he hadn’t in many years; without being surrounded by dogs, without the use of medication, without the use of alcohol, without horrific nightmares. He slept and he felt rested when he woke.

Or, more accurately, was woken.

Hannibal’s lips were soft against his own, coaxing and gentle, and Will smiled into the kiss as he stretched out, his back finding the sheets and Hannibal’s body pressing his own down against him.

It was early. Whatever the time, it was pre-dawn outside the windows and Will was still hazy and lax from sleep. He dropped his arms over Hannibal’s shoulders and opened his mouth to him again, uncaring how he so easily opened to this stranger, this murderer, when he had not been so open with people who had long claimed to be his friends.

“Mornin’,” Will murmured, the slightest hint of his drawl coming out as he made himself properly wake up. He could feel Hannibal hard against his hip, knew his own cock was slowly filling in answer. He still ached from the night before, but in the most blissful way; he still couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Good morning, Will,” Hannibal whispered, tickling the words against Will’s ear as he kissed just behind it, drew his fingers through Will’s tangled curls to gently tug them and lift Will’s face. “You are a temptation.”

“You’re welcome to succumb,” Will replied, amusement curling his tone. He tilted his hips just enough to draw their lengths together and narrowed his eyes at Hannibal. “You have me.”

Hannibal hummed, rolling his body down against Will’s once before pulling away. “After breakfast.”

“I may not be as responsive when you’ve taken a chunk out of me,” Will warned. Hannibal’s answering smile was cat-like and pleased.

“I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Will was not at all surprised to find that Hannibal had a thoroughly stocked operating room in his basement. He was sure, given time, that he could piece together every body he’d ever found, just by wandering the room. 

This morning, though, his focus was the operating table, cold steel with leather straps.

“Kinky, Doctor,” Will said, fingering a hospital-grade restraint at the head of the table. Hannibal’s arms slid around his waist, tucking a smile against Will’s throat.

“There are many sensitive arteries in your leg, and neither of us wanted you drugged for this. If I’m to remove the meat safely, you’ll need to be still.”

“Right. Absolutely no sexual purpose behind the restraints at all.”

Hannibal’s teeth closed gently over Will’s pulse. “Now, Will, that’s not what I said, is it? But breakfast first.”

Hannibal laid a blanket down for Will to rest on, rather than subjecting him to the cold metal. Will lay down without hesitation, his body thrumming with excitement he could only equate to a child at Christmas. He smiled as Hannibal bound down his ankles and wrists, laughed when he drew another elastic restraint just under Will’s knee, another over his hips. He moaned when Hannibal leaned in to kiss him.

“Have you ever been cut, Will?”

“Stabbed,” Will replied, settling back to the table with a sigh. “In my shoulder. You’ve seen the scar.”

Hannibal hummed agreement, and reached to draw fingers almost delicately over the puckered wound before pulling away. “It’s rather a different sensation, I’m afraid. Though it leaves a similarly dull ache behind.”

Will’s smile was one he couldn’t control. He laughed when he was nervous, but this was something else entirely. He was vibrating with excitement. He was about to get what he wanted, what he’d been planning for months, what he’d been aching for when he first reached out in the Cannibal Cafe.

“There are ways to cut so as not to hinder your walking,” Hannibal was explaining, “for the moment. There may be some weakness, but strength is recoverable.”

Will just nodded, looking up at the ceiling, letting his eyes flick between one bright LED bulb and another. He blinked and turned his head when Hannibal’s knuckles grazed his cheek.

“You need not be stoic with me, dear Will,” he added. “I know very well the pain I will be causing you. Let me hear your suffering.”

The first cut didn’t hurt until after it was over. The scalpel had been well sharpened, and it slid through his skin like a hot knife through butter. The second line was much the same. 

When Hannibal began to cut deeper, Will shut his eyes with a slow hiss. When he began to sever muscles, Will could no longer hold back a scream. 

Hannibal didn’t stop to check on him. He continued to work as if Will had been silent, as though Will were any sedated patient. 

“Hannibal,” Will moaned, nauseous as Hannibal carved out a piece of his flesh, “God,  _ Hannibal!” _

Will didn’t ask for it to stop. He wasn’t sure what terrified him more, that Hannibal wouldn’t, or the chance that he  _ would.  _ He’d never felt a pain like this, hot and burning and unceasing, a constant agony as Hannibal seemed to tear him into pieces. 

Somewhere towards the end, the room began to spin, and by the time Hannibal successfully set the flesh aside, Will had lost consciousness. 

The doctor looked up only to check that Will’s chest was rising and falling as it should have been before returning to his work.

Now that he had the meat he needed, he worked on stopping the bleeding.

The most crude method would be to sear the blood vessels closed. He didn’t have the time to carefully remove the skin from what he’d cut away to graft it to Will’s leg; and using old skin that could grow infected was much worse than leaving Will with a bright burn he would wear for a few days more.

Hannibal worked quickly, pressing fingers to Will’s pulse at his leg to check the speed against the large clock on the wall. He cleaned up the wound and dressed it, and set a cuff around Will’s arm to measure his blood pressure as he came back to himself. For the moment, he forwent a drip.

And then he stood back and just looked at the man before him. A strong, brave, clever man. A man who knew him almost immediately, and whose response had not been horror but adoration, amusement. Will had reached for him and nuzzled close, he’d purred his name, his tabloid moniker and fallen asleep against the man who he trusted to kill him.

And Hannibal would kill him, he could, just then, while Will lay unconscious on his operating table in the basement that had seen many a life dissipate into its walls.

He could.

But he would not.

Hannibal had promised this beautiful man breakfast.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Are you going to feed me?”_
> 
> _“It would give me great pleasure to,” Hannibal admitted, gauging Will’s reaction. In answer, Will merely sighed and parted his lips._

Will woke wrapped comfortably in a blanket, seated upright in a chair. Everything was vaguely hazy, and moving. For a moment, he wondered if he was the creature again. He’d been dreaming of it more and more, sometimes seeing through its eyes, other times a spectator to its movements and actions.

He remembered vaguely the shape of a stag, enormous, jurassic, feathered from ears to rump, where fur started to grow instead. It had been prowling Will’s mind for days now, but this was the first time he’d properly seen it.

Will blinked.

“We said,” he breathed, starting over when he lost track, “We said no morphine.”

“No anesthetic for the procedure," Hannibal agreed from behind him, “but you’ll stomach a meal far better without suffering.” 

The chair was a wheelchair. Will figured that out when he was pushed right up to the head of the table. “The guest of honor,” Hannibal said, kissing the crown of Will’s head. 

Will tried to track Hannibal’s motions, but he soon had to close his eyes against the spinning of the room. Hannibal rubbed gently at his neck. 

“Breakfast will keep if you need a few more moments. You’ve already done so well.”

Will’s smile was lazy, he felt like he was floating and he wanted to sleep, but the last thing he needed was to sleep away the few days he had left with Hannibal. He bit his lip and very deliberately shook his head, not enough to jar his brain into a tailspin, but enough to get his point across. When he opened his eyes again he found Hannibal and smiled up at him.

“Coffee,” he said, and Hannibal bowed,  _ bowed _ , before moving off to get it for him.

Before him, Will saw a beautifully appointed plate already steaming, cutlery wrapped in a heavy napkin. An omelette, from what Will could tell, with sweet peppers and onions and fresh herbs and  _ him _ .

Hannibal kissed Will’s temple when he returned, setting a cup before him filled with the most aromatic coffee. Will moaned before reaching for it.

“What did you make of me?” He asked after the first blissful mouthful.

“Protein scramble,” Hannibal replied, sitting not, as Will assumed he would, at the other end of the table, or even in the seat by the corner next to Will, but right beside him. When Hannibal reached for the fork, Will laughed, turning to rest his cheek against his shoulder as he narrowed his eyes at Hannibal.

“Are you going to feed me?”

“It would give me great pleasure to,” Hannibal admitted, gauging Will’s reaction. In answer, Will merely sighed and parted his lips.

There had of course been the worry that Hannibal would get it wrong. Up until he’d devoured dinner, Will had entertained nightmares of burnt flesh and tough meat. Miewes had, after all, completely ruined his meal. Even after Will learned of Hannibal’s skills, he’d feared that his flesh simply wouldn’t be edible. 

The first bite was a burst of flavor. The seasonings were perfectly chosen, the eggs were light and fluffy, but the  _ meat _ …

Will consumed himself in a greedy swallow and opened his mouth for more. The texture had been perfect, soft and practically melting in his mouth. He wanted more. He wanted to sink his teeth into the source and swallow a mouthful of blood. 

Hannibal watched him with rapt eyes. He hadn’t set himself a place at the table, and Will had devoured a third of the meal before he could think clearly enough to speak. 

“Have you tasted me?”

Hannibal shook his head, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “I was waiting. The guest of honor should have the first bite.”

Will smiled at him, wide and bright and adoring, and pressed his cheek to his shoulder again with a quiet little noise. Hannibal didn’t force him to eat more, the fact that Will had eaten this much, had truly enjoyed it, was beautiful beyond all words to Hannibal. He could barely breathe. When Will blinked up at him again, Hannibal thought his heart would stop.

“Try it,” Will coaxed him quietly. “I want to see how I taste to you.”

Hannibal’s breath came out in a soft moan, and he turned to the plate as his jaw worked. Emotions threatened to overwhelm him. Never had he met anyone, anything, like Will Graham. It was the cruelty of fate that he would meet the one man to ever understand him and love him for it, and he would want to be eaten and killed by him.

He pierced two pieces of meat with the fork, added some egg, and brought it to his mouth, teeth carefully tugging it from the tines before his lips folded over the mouthful and his tongue unfurled to taste.

There were many misconceptions about the taste of human flesh. Some claimed it tasted entirely gamey, like venison, sharp and almost peppery in its natural makeup. Others likened it to pork. But to Hannibal every person he had ever eaten had tasted different.

Will tasted almost sweet. He tasted on the plate as Will’s kisses had tasted against Hannibal’s lips the night before. He tasted of fire and exhaustion. He tasted of enlightenment and forgiveness. He tasted -

“Exquisite,” Hannibal told him honestly, leaning near to press their foreheads together. “You taste exquisite, Will.”

Will made that soft little sound again, that weakly pleased noise. He tilted his head, their noses brushing and then their lips. His kiss was delicate. Hannibal had taken a beautiful creature and made it porcelain, preserved and valuable. 

Breakfast could wait. Will had been fed, which was the most important thing. He would not need to be drugged again for several hours yet. Hannibal scooped him up into a bridal carry, careful with his knees. Will hid a hiss of pain against his shoulder; the morphine had not removed all sensation, and Hannibal had not intended it to. 

“Is this the honeymoon, then?” Will laughed, nipping playfully at Hannibal’s shirt. His limbs were lax and uncoordinated. He was entirely helpless without Hannibal to help, and the thought was somehow thrilling. He was helpless because he and Hannibal had feasted from him. 

“Yes,” Hannibal told him. He showed no weariness as he carried Will up the stairs, long used to toting bodies around, and Will gave a hum of appreciation when he was laid out on the bed. 

“I’m afraid I can’t offer much.” Hannibal hadn’t redressed Will. He stripped his own clothes away and then parted the blanket as if opening a gift.

“You have already offered me the greatest gift you had to give,” Hannibal told him. “The rest is mine to provide.”

Will snorted, derision somewhat muted by the haziness of his entire body, but his smile was genuine. He preened, stretching his shoulders enough to tilt his chest up, to drop his head into the pillows behind him with a sigh. He watched through half-closed eyes as Hannibal settled between his thighs, as he guided them gently wider and bent to worship kisses against Will’s skin.

He didn’t touch the bandaged side of Will’s thigh, he pressed his palm instead to the curve where Will’s ass joined his leg and kissed his way towards Will’s cock.

When heat enveloped him, Will bit his lip and let his eyes properly close. He drew his knees up weakly and tried to push his hips down against Hannibal more, finding that that took more strength than he could summon. So instead he lay back and let Hannibal pleasure him, let himself feel every gentle sweep of his tongue over the thick vein, every gentle tensing of lips around the head of Will’s cock.

He grew hard almost reluctantly, the drugs in the way of quick arousal and quick release, and Will dropped a hand heavy in Hannibal’s hair just to feel the way he moved against him. His other he rested above his own head, fingers absently seeking over the folds of fabric on the pillow before finding a corner to grasp and hold to.

“Hannibal -” he sighed, smile splitting wide as he shivered. “God, your fucking  _ mouth _ …”

Hannibal gave a few more enthusiastic bobs of his head before pulling back, kissing Will’s hipbone gently. 

It had been hours since the last time Hannibal had filled him, but Will’s body gave way easily to an exploratory finger, unable to put up even a token resistance. Hannibal took only the time it required to coat his cock in lubricant, pressing into Will without any further prep.

This, the morphine could not dull. Not entirely. Technically, Will noticed a distance, a fuzziness to the sensations, but sex, for him, had a strong mental component, and the mere knowledge of Hannibal forcing a space inside him made him shudder. He managed to get a weak arm around Hannibal’s shoulders before Hannibal rocked into him again, harder this time, shifting Will up the bed and making him gasp. 

Pain burned bright in his thigh, sudden and aching, too much for the morphine to hide. Will sobbed, fingernails grasping at Hannibal’s back.

“Are you… going to be like this every time?” Will panted. Hannibal laughed darkly, biting over a bruise he’d left high on Will’s throat.

“I certainly hope so.”

“God, what a way to go,” Will laughed. He was going to spend the rest of his life nourishing this man and then being fucked into oblivion. Just the two of them, intertwined more thoroughly than any two people had ever been. Pain and pleasure, consumption in its truest forms. “Hannibal,  _ hurts _ .”

“Do you need me to stop?”

“Don’t you  _ dare _ .”

He clung to Hannibal painfully, nails dragging against his skin when he moved, as the other damn near  _ growled _ and thrust into Will harder. God, he was floating again; pain and lust and drugs and pain again making Will’s head spin.

He was aware that he was crying out, could feel tears on his face as they slipped from eyes squeezed shut. Will could also feel how hard he was, how Hannibal’s claiming of him was driving his body nearer and nearer to release that would send him plummeting, and Will welcomed it.

He wished he could tell Hannibal how incredible this felt.

He wished he had the strength to kiss him.

And then Hannibal tilted his hips just so, and Will saw stars.

Beneath his hands, Hannibal’s skin became like leather, and just as black. Antlers burst from Hannibal’s skull and tore at the pillows on either side of Will’s face. Every breath was a snort of a beast, condensing into drops against Will’s face. Will didn’t open his eyes, he couldn’t, but he knew that the harder the creature pounded into him, the closer he came to being torn apart.

And then it happened; a thrust so harsh it tore skin, pulling a wail from Will that morphed into a whine of need. Another followed, cracking through the front of his pubic bone, separating his hips as the monster fucked harder, plowed deeper into him. It was no longer sex, it was a consuming, a very particular consummation.

It tore through Will’s intestines and belly, bisected his diaphragm, slid alongside his heart and  _ pulsed _ , heat and blood and come spilling from between Will’s lips as he lost himself to pleasure so intense he couldn’t  _ breathe. _

He came to with a cool cloth against his face, gentle fingers guiding it along his hairline and down one cheek.

“There you are,” Hannibal murmured, and Will felt his chest fill so entirely that for the moment he didn’t have the breath to answer him. Hannibal hardly seemed to mind, he continued to wipe the sweat from Will’s brow, leaned in to ghost his lips over Will’s.

“Sorry,” Will sighed, tongue parting his lips as he blinked his eyes open. “Should’ve seen that coming.”

“You were beautiful,” Hannibal assured him, “Rapturous in your pleasure, and then beautiful in your peace.”

“I can take more when the drugs wear off,” Will promised. Already, he could feel the pain in his thigh sharpening, strength returning to his limbs. 

He thought of antlers and clawed hands. He thought he tasted iron at the back of his tongue.

Hannibal hummed, considering. “Perhaps. But then your suffering might dull you to your pleasure.

Will turned his head on the pillow, taking Hannibal in. “You  _ liked _ it,” he accused. “You  _ liked _ me defenseless. Entirely at your mercy and your whims.”

“I like you however you are,” Hannibal deflected. Will laughed, shaking his head.

“Sure, but if ‘how I am’ is ‘helpless and needy,’ you’ll get off on it.”

Hannibal folded the cloth, resting it over Will’s eyes. Will let it be, snickering. 

“I can still see you with my eyes covered, Hannibal.”

Hannibal kissed him to shut him up instead, and Will allowed that to be the end of it. It hardly bothered him if he were helpless for Hannibal, in the end he would die by his hand and be consumed by him. Helpless was the most powerful Will could be for the time he had left to live.

“Will you start on my limbs next?” Will asked after a while, bringing a hand up to swipe the cloth further up onto his forehead so he could see Hannibal. “Four days, four dinners?”

Hannibal looked, for a moment, hesitant, and Will tensed immediately. Surely the Chesapeake Ripper wasn’t about to balk on eating a willing victim. Surely -

“I thought I might put my own patience to the test,” he replied at length, and Will’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. 

“Hannibal.”

The doctor looked at him immediately, eyes flicking between Will’s before he reached out to draw his knuckles down his cheek. “I find myself infatuated, Will, I do hope you’ll forgive me if I’d like to extend our time together.”

Will’s immediate, instinctive response was a bitter knife.  _ I didn’t sign on to be a pet _ . 

But that was not how Hannibal saw him, he knew that. Hannibal saw him as beautiful, desirable. Delicious.

_ I find myself infatuated. _

Will couldn’t deny the attachment. Hannibal pulled him, drew his attention easily. What was the harm in a few extra days? Maybe even weeks. Will would still get what he wanted. Death at the hand of someone who found him both useful and appealing. The taste of his own flesh in his teeth. 

“We could take something small? Or wait a few days.”

Hannibal rubbed their noses together, sighing softly. “Both, perhaps?” His tone was not quite pleading, but Will heard longing in it. 

“Alright,” Will found himself saying, “Alright. Draw it out. Show me how much you want me.” An idea struck him, sharp, fierce. “Show  _ everyone.  _ You once offered me documentation.”

Hannibal blinked at him, pulling away just enough to meet Will’s eyes properly and raise an eyebrow. Will reached out to him, tracing his fingers over Hannibal’s lips, up over his cheek.

“Show them what you take of me, show them how desperately I want you to take it.” Will’s cheeks were warm with the idea, the power in it, the depravity. “No faces, no names. Neither of us have distinguishing marks. Cut me and let them hear me scream. Then take me and make them jealous that no one else could ever pull such sounds from me.”

Hannibal lowered himself to press to Will, careful to guide his leg to the side so he wasn’t adding weight to it. He turned his head into Will’s petting hand like a cat and considered him with dark eyes.

“You would show the world your death?”

“I would show them the symbiosis of life and death,” Will countered. “One who willingly feeds, one who willingly eats. Life begetting life, creation, as God intended.”

“You would be art,” Hannibal said softly. Will could see the idea had caught him. As the Ripper, he had made pigs into something beautiful. Now he had the chance to elevate something he already found pleasing, a chance Will had willingly given him. 

Will may have just accidentally encouraged this infatuation, but it would all come out the same in the end. 

“Make me your masterpiece,” Will said, nearly demanded. Hannibal, knowingly or not, had just handed him power, and Will would glut himself on it. “Everyone after me, every beautiful thing you make, it should pale in comparison. Let me leave my mark on you as you have on me.”

Hannibal sucked in a breath, his body tense against Will’s. Will surged onward. 

“I’ve seen you, Hannibal, entirely. Everything you have left for us to find is beautiful. Give me the same gift.”

It was a challenge; to Hannibal’s ego and his skill and his prowess as a monster. It was a challenge issued by the only creature to have ever understood Hannibal and live longer than a day. Hannibal kissed him hard enough to make Will whine, snaring his hair and tugging it to give himself easier access to Will’s throat.

Beneath him, Will shifted, opening himself to Hannibal more, lying pliant and ready and alive for him. Will gently petted Hannibal’s hair as he sucked kisses against his pulse, smiling warm and pleased. The idea delighted him, to be the reason psychopaths found their pleasure, to be the reason Hannibal would never be forgotten, even if he was never caught.

He would leave a legacy as sick as the ones he’d been forced to see at the FBI.

“We will let the camera see the blood and the pain, we will let it catalog what we consume, we will let them think it nothing more than perversion.” Will murmured, eyes glazed as he started up at the ceiling, blinking lazily when Hannibal held himself over Will again. “And then we will have this,” he added quietly, “each other, just like this, for no one’s eyes but our own.”

“You belong to me,” Hannibal whispered, “and I, to you. You have captured me so thoroughly…” He wanted Will again, and again after that, until they both shook with it. Until their bodies could no longer hold up. His hand reached for Will’s hip, traveling down his undamaged thigh to his knee. 

“When I take  _ this _ ,” he said, cupping Will’s calf, “we’ll let the world see it. I’ll fuck you right there on the table, conscious or not.”

“God,  _ do it _ ,” Will groaned. 

“After,” Hannibal added, “I’ll piece the rest of you back together. Tuck you into bed to recover, feed you your own flesh from my fingertips.”

“And when I die,” Will asked, “Will you show them that, too?”

He could see the uncertainty in Hannibal’s eyes, the hesitation. “No,” he finally said, “That will just be for us. An intimacy like none anyone else could ever know.”

The very organ Will demanded Hannibal eat was hammering so hard against Will’s ribs he was sure Hannibal could hear it. He surged up against him, arms wrapping tight over Hannibal’s shoulders as he kissed him again, hard, needy, demanding. He drew up his uninjured leg and wrapped it over Hannibal’s back, arching himself up to rub against him, needy and eager.

“I want you,” he breathed, pulling back just enough to use Hannibal’s position as leverage to push himself higher up the bed. “Right now, Hannibal, hard. I want you to make me come. I don’t want you to stop if I pass out, I want you to have me.”

Hannibal kissed his words from him, wasn’t as gentle this time as he spread Will’s legs, ignoring his wince of pain, his sharp cry when his thumb just brushed the gauze taped over his wound.

“When you’ve regained your strength,” Hannibal whispered, tugging Will’s earlobe as he teased the head of his cock against him, not yet pushing in. “I will have you astride me, prideful and beautiful, fucking yourself to your heart’s content on my cock while I watch.”

Will writhed beneath him, fighting pain and exhaustion to try and force Hannibal inside him. “Yes, yes, Hannibal, anything you want, just  _ please _ -“

“Be careful of those promises,” Hannibal growled, dragging Will down the bed and onto his cock, “someone might take advantage of you.”

Will threw his head back on a scream. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Lovely, horrible creature,” Hannibal praised, breathless with his adoration. He placed another kiss to the heel, the ankle, upward until he reached the thigh he would leave untouched - for the moment. “You should savor your final steps tomorrow. You’ll never walk again.”_

Will recovered for three days. 

He supposed it was more accurate to say that Hannibal did not carve him again for three days.

What Hannibal had taken had been enough for breakfast and a little into lunch that same day. After sex, Hannibal cleaned Will up and let him rest, waking him to fed him in the late afternoon before allowing him to sleep again with another dose of morphine.

When Will woke in the night-time, he made his own slow way to the bathroom to relieve himself and admire his reflection in the mirror. He was still mostly whole, but he already felt different; half into and half out of this world.

It was liberating.

When he climbed back into bed he curled up against Hannibal's resting form and nuzzled between his shoulders. It didn't take long for Will to fall asleep that way.

The next morning, Hannibal woke him with his mouth around Will's cock, and Will came before he was entirely conscious. Hannibal was entirely too smug when he kissed him.

That day was much like the one previous.

Breakfast was different but just as filling, morphine was given in doses just enough to dull the pain but not take it entirely away. Hannibal fucked Will in their bed until Will was sobbing with it. Then he let him rest. Come evening, he bathed Will, careful to clean his wound properly and dress it before guiding Will into bed where he was served dinner.

On the third day, Hannibal was more attentive than ever. He worked oils into Will’s skin, prompting jokes about ‘seasoning’, rubbed aches from his body. He pressed a kiss into the arch of Will’s foot, the one that would soon be gone.

“It will be worse,” Hannibal warned. “Slower, with far more discomfort. I will have to cut through tendons this time. And there is a process to follow so that we may patch up the end and prevent infection. It’s doubtful you’ll remain conscious.”

Will’s heart raced, a flutter in his chest that made him dizzy with excitement. He rested his hand in Hannibal’s hair, pushing it from his eyes. “I want it,” he promised. “I want them to see. I want to wake to you inside me.”

“Lovely, horrible creature,” Hannibal praised, breathless with his adoration. He placed another kiss to the heel, the ankle, upward until he reached the thigh he would leave untouched - for the moment. “You should savor your final steps tomorrow. You’ll never walk again.”

Will moaned softly, hauling Hannibal up into a harsh kiss. “Ruin me,” he begged. “Make me into your design. Change me.”

Sex that night was slow, lingering. Hannibal grasped at his calf as if it was  _ his _ leg that would soon be gone. 

Will fell asleep with a smile on his lips and woke in the early morning light to Hannibal offering him a hood to wear. 

“Much as I hate to be deprived of your smile, you’re simply too recognizable.”

Will hummed his displeasure but knew that it would hardly do either of them favors if the video was reported or flagged by one of the Internet Homicide divisions. Hannibal had been casually following the news, offering Will the tablet if he was so inclined to look something up himself, and thus far nothing had been written about the disappearance of one Will Graham.

He took the hood and the kiss that followed, and nuzzled against Hannibal before pushing himself out of bed with a sigh.

They had decided to amputate the opposite leg to the one Hannibal had initially cut. The wound would be on show for the camera to see, and Will had never been particularly fond of symmetrical things.

He wanted Hannibal to make him beautiful, not perfect.

The basement was set up much the same as the first time Will had been there, but now there was a camera to the side, routed through several different VPNs and servers to encrypt and cloud their location should someone track the IP.  Another was mounted to the ceiling, offering a bird’s eye view of the entire affair. Nowhere to hide.

Will felt giddy. His hands were shaking.

Hannibal had a hood of his own, and they’d both agreed his voice was too distinct for him to speak, but Will had no such restrictions. He was not only expected but  _ encouraged _ to cry and yell and even beg, if he so chose. 

Will knew he wouldn’t beg. Not for it to stop, at least. He hadn’t last time. He’d submitted to what Hannibal offered him, willingly, eagerly. 

Hannibal tied him down, wrists, ankles, and hips again, but then two additional straps over his knees. One to hold the leg in place for amputation, one to keep the other knee out of the way so he didn’t strike Hannibal in a panic. 

There was a screen set up for Will to watch, and at the sight of himself his cock hardened against his thigh. That wouldn’t last long, but he hoped their audience would enjoy it. He was already looking forward to the comments. 

No painkillers. No anesthetic. Just Hannibal, laying out tools. He would need a lot more than a scalpel this time, and the sight made Will shiver; saws, pincers, scicaters. “Please,” he begged. He couldn’t see Hannibal’s lips to tell if he was smiling, but Will recognized the look in his eyes easily. 

He had no idea when the camera would be running. He had no way of knowing what was happening around him except what he could pick up from the screen before him, and that was if the hood stayed properly in place and didn’t shift to half-cover his eyes when Will turned his head.

He squeezed his hands into fists in their restraints. Licked his lips, tried to slow his breathing…

And then Hannibal put on some music.

Something meant to be soothing, classical, operatic without the vocals to truly make it so, and Will almost laughed at the absurdity. Because of course, of  _ course _ The Chesapeake Ripper worked to  _ music _ , of course he was that level of pretentious bastard.

Will almost didn’t notice the first incision, too preoccupied with the hilarity of the situation, of the panic and excitement that hummed beneath his skin. When he did, there was already a lot more blood than he’d imagined there could be.

“Fuck,” he tried, wincing when Hannibal worked diligently at first peeling back the skin around the area he’d cut. “Fuck!”

The restraints held true, no matter how hard Will tried to shift, he couldn’t move beyond perhaps half an inch in any direction. Hannibal, as before, simply ignored the struggling and worked around it. Will wished he could see his face. Wished he would call his name. He grit his teeth and whined, high and hitched, when Hannibal tugged a flap of skin and flayed it off, folding it back almost casually against Will’s knee.

The second flap went better, if only because the agonies blended together. Will lost track of what was happening for a moment, dizzied, and when he came back to himself, Hannibal had lifted the bone saw. 

He wanted it, he knew he did, but at the moment it was the worst thing Will had ever seen. 

“Gonna th-throw up,” Will managed to stammer. Hannibal moved smoothly, stepping between Will and the camera and peeling the hood back. He’d scooped a bucket up from the floor, and he propped Will up by the shoulders, watching him lose the entirety of his breakfast without a hint of discomfort.

Will lost consciousness somewhere between that and Hannibal sliding the hood back down his face. He came to in a burst of pain, screaming towards the ceiling and tugging helplessly at the leather restraints. 

It hurt, it hurt more than anything else had ever hurt in his fucking  _ life.  _ Will swallowed a mouthful of bile and shook his head, unable to watch Hannibal carving into him. 

He lost himself, in between pain and darkness and  _ agony _ and nothingness, unable to rest, unable to stay awake. He didn’t want Hannibal to  _ stop _ but he wanted it to be  _ over.  _ No regrets, just a desperate wish for the pain to end. 

Hannibal worked meticulously, keeping an eye on the cuff he had on Will’s arm that monitored his BP and pulse. He had two bags of blood set aside for a transfusion, but he didn’t want to start them too soon. He was, after all, one man working on another, he did not have a technical support team at his side to hand him equipment and monitor many things at the same time.

He would not have Will die on his table.

Not today, at least.

After the saw came the patch up. Hannibal working quickly to stop the bleeding, hands careful with the intricate folding and sewing of muscle and tendon and sinew. Will jerked once in a while, a helpless moan escaping him, but was otherwise between consciousness and sweet dark release.

He was extraordinary.

Even though Hannibal could not see his face - and that was quite a heavy regret - he could feel the way Will tried to struggle, tried to wriggle free; his body seeking out escape even if his mind was determined to see this through.

As soon as everything was done but the final stitching, Hannibal took out the first unit of blood, taking his time to find Will’s vein as his chest rose and fell shallowly, sweat gathering at his sternum. He whispered to Will that he was beautiful, that he was remarkable, and by the time the blood was flowing where it needed to be, Hannibal was at the stump of Will’s leg, sewing skin to pieces of skin.

Will woke to new music - still classical, still far too soft for the hell he was going through - and to Hannibal’s cock in him, slow, deliberate thrusts to get Will stretched. He moaned, the sound breaking off into a sob, and turned his hands in the restraints.

“Stop,” he gasped. Body shaking, head spinning. He felt sick again. He felt pleasure crawl up his spine. “Oh god.”

Hannibal didn’t stop. He freed Will’s leg, the one still whole, and spread him wider, leaning over Will as his thrusts became deeper, better aimed, deliberate. His breath puffed quick against Will’s neck through the hood he wore and Will cried louder.

_ Don’t _ “Stop -”

_ Don’t _ “Stop.”

_ Don’t _ “Stop!”

He didn’t know if he was hard, he didn’t care. Hannibal within him felt incredible, the pain he was riding was making Will almost numb and hazy, and he wasn’t drugged, he knew he wasn’t drugged and the thought thrilled him.

“Please,” he breathed, “please, God, please -”

He didn’t remember much after that.

Hands became claws, shadows grew antlers that pierced Will’s shoulders to hold him still. He felt as though he were being flayed alive, the creature of his nightmares feasting on his flesh for the whole world to see, lidless eyes white and vacant, leathery skin squeaking against the clean steel table.

The camera went off. They would stream it later, together, when Will was comfortable enough to enjoy the responses. He took off Will’s hood.

Hannibal switched out the transfusion for another unit of blood. When that was done he gave Will a shot of morphine, pleased when the furrow in his brow smoothed out. Once he had Will safely tucked into their bed, he could get him hooked onto an IV. 

Somehow it had become  _ their _ bed. Hannibal couldn’t trace the thought back to its source, but he was stunned into momentary stillness by it. 

Perhaps it was Will’s eagerness to be devoured, his admiration of Hannibal’s art. Perhaps it was his brilliance and the way he could easily keep up with Hannibal in conversation. Perhaps Hannibal was just lonely. 

But the fact of the matter was it had happened. Hannibal had become attached. And their bed would be cold and empty when Will was no longer in it, alive or dead. 

He set Will up with a saline drip, a BP cuff, a pulse monitor that was connected by Bluetooth to Hannibal’s phone, in case something changed while he was in the basement and Will alone upstairs. And then he went to clean up.

* * *

Will woke groggy, his throat hurt, and everything else hurt worse.  He thought for a moment that he was in the woods of Wolf Trap, shadows moving around him as he lay in the fog-heavy leaf litter, not feeling cold or hot or anything at all. He tried to call to Hannibal but found he had no voice left, just a foul taste in his mouth. He managed a croak. Somehow, that was loud enough to bring Hannibal close within moments.

“Hello, Will,” he breathed, leaning in to scent him, to kiss his temple, to touch Will absolutely everywhere with the most gentle fingers, as though hours before this man had not bound Will down to perform surgery without anaesthetics. Will smiled.

“Water.”

Hannibal was already prepared with a glass and a straw. Will wanted to giggle at the thought of the Chesapeake Ripper having  _ bendy straws _ , but the motion jarred his body and made him whimper. 

“Water first,” Hannibal insisted, “then something light for your empty stomach. Once you’ve eaten and your body has settled, you can have more morphine.”

More morphine sounded  _ fantastic _ . Will had been firm about avoiding pain relief before, but the burning ache in his thigh had nothing on the pain he felt now. He could feel it all the way down to his toes. Including the toes he didn’t have anymore. 

Will swallowed slow, tiny mouthfuls of water and then attempted to nudge the blanket off of him. “Can I see?” He rasped. 

Hannibal smiled, slowly easing the blanket down Will’s body. His wrists had been bandaged, no doubt rubbed raw from his attempts to free himself. His thigh had been rebandaged as well, and the other leg…

The other leg ended just above the knee, in a careful arrangement of bandages. Will drew in a breath, filled with awe. He wanted to touch it, but Hannibal snatched his hands before he could try. 

“You are beautiful,” Hannibal assured him, “but you will be less so with an infection.”

Will frowned, eyes blinking out of time with each other, from the drugs and pain both. Why should that matter? Infection took days, weeks to kill someone. Why would -

_ I find myself infatuated, Will. _

Will swallowed, laying down against the pillows again. “How long did it take?”

“A while,” Hannibal answered unhelpfully, but his smile was warm when he looked at Will. He reached out to stroke his hair. “I’ve yet to put the footage online. I wanted you to be awake to see it go live, follow the stream of comments as they updated.”

Will’s smile was lazy and wide and he groaned when he tried to reach for Hannibal himself. Instead, the doctor kissed him on the cheek.

“Lay still,” he told him.

Will wasn’t sure if he fell asleep or lost time, but when he blinked Hannibal was back with toast smeared with something creamy that smelled divine. Will couldn’t remember why he felt so empty when they’d had a filling breakfast that morning. He let Hannibal hand feed him, shook his head when he couldn’t eat anymore and accepted more water instead.

Hannibal leaned in to kiss him when he added more morphine to his drip, and Will floated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We called the stream ‘Transfemoral Amputation’ you idiot.” Will was having the time of his life. This side of the stream was so much better than trying to track sources._

For a day or so, Will was only conscious for minutes at a time, enough to eat or drink, but not to have any real conversation. Hannibal refused to lower the morphine drip until  _ he _ felt Will was ready, despite Will’s drowsy protests. 

It was nice. Will would wake to a hand in his hair, a thumb stroking gently over his cheek. Lips soft against his brow. 

The first time he  _ really _ woke after the surgery, it was like that. Hannibal had a hand over his stomach, rubbing circles up over his chest and back down again. He looked enraptured when Will’s eyes managed to focus on him. 

“Hello, stranger,” Hannibal said. 

Will stuck his tongue out, still slightly hazy from the drugs. “Not my fault,” he whispered. His voice had returned, but using it was exhausting, even now. “Do I get to stay this time?”

“As long as your body allows. If you feel up to it in a bit, I’d like to sit you up against the headboard. I need to check your bandages, but then we can watch the video, if you’re ready.”

Will hummed agreement and nuzzled into the pillow until Hannibal got the idea and lay close enough for Will to nuzzle him instead. He’d had dreams when he was under, fevered and strange, but not horrific, he hadn’t been drowning in nightmares like he would once have been. No, these dreams had been passionate, soft, achingly wonderful. 

He’d dreamed of Hannibal making love to him while piece by piece Will just melted away into nothing. He’d dreamed of watching Hannibal prepare his leg, sitting at the counter, asking questions, getting answers, normal as any family dinner. He’d dreamed of kisses and roving hands. He’d dreamed of the taste of blood and bile.

He needed to brush his teeth.

When Hannibal sat him up, he told him as such, and as Will lazily drew his brush over and over his teeth, Hannibal carefully checked him over. It was wonderfully intimate, Hannibal touching Will like a precious thing, occasionally reaching out to stroke a hand over Will’s bare chest or arm or shoulder, to brush a kiss to his cheek, to nuzzle his hair.

Will was loved, entirely. He was wanted, entirely.

And he was hungry, actually.

“How morbid would I be if I asked for dinner and a show?” Will asked him, passing back his toothbrush and cup as Hannibal reached for it.

Hannibal looked endlessly pleased. 

“You already have something ready, don’t you?”

“I was prepared for any eventuality,” Hannibal said, wrapping Will up in blankets again. Will was beginning to feel a bit smothered by all the blankets, but he  _ was _ cold. “I’ll need to leave you for about half an hour, but I’ll be within earshot.”

Hannibal gestured towards the end table, and Will laughed at what was clearly an expensive video baby monitor. 

“You won’t be missing much,” Will said. His eyelids already felt heavy. Half an hour would be plenty of time to sneak in a short nap and be rejuvenated for the video. 

It seemed that he hadn’t even finished the thought before Hannibal was waking him, helping Will back up where he’d begun to droop. He’d brought a tray of food, chunks of pan-seared meat and artfully roasted vegetables. He settled that over Will’s lap and then climbed in beside him with his laptop. 

Will made an embarrassing sound at how good the food smelled, and took up his fork as Hannibal opened the laptop and worked to set up the feed. Will couldn’t tell what forum they were hosting in, it didn’t matter. The links would be distributed to Cannibal Cafe among other places by the keyword searches.

Will took a bite of meat first, chewing carefully, allowing the flavor to fill his mouth before he swallowed and licked his lips.

“My compliments to the chef,” Will told Hannibal, amused, before spearing another slice and offering it to the doctor, who took it without question from Will’s fork. “You’re allowed to sample your own damn food, Hannibal.”

“I do,” he deflected, turning the screen enough for them both to see the video and the comments that would be running alongside once people joined the stream.

Inevitably, the first comment was “ _ omfg is this 4 real??” _

“Yes,” Will deadpanned, taking a bite of carrot next. “And tasty, too.”

The viewer count started ticking upwards before Hannibal had even grabbed a scalpel. 

> _ [usrnamewat00] Fuck yeah bondage babe! _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Wish that was me. _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] Which one? _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Yes.  _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] This is fake, right? _

“That one is gonna come up constantly,” Will said, jabbing his fork towards the screen. “Fifteen-year-old chickens who think they’ll be edgy and cool if they brave the dark web and end up in over their heads. Probably doesn’t even know to use VPNs and Tor. We used to get a ton of those, false flags when we were looking for trouble.”

> _ [haxxor1337] Oh  _ **_shit_ ** _ he’s gonna cut his fucking leg off!!! _

“We called the stream ‘Transfemoral Amputation’ you idiot.” Will was having the time of his life. This side of the stream was so much better than trying to track sources. 

> _ [b00bikay] Look at him squirm I wanna give him something to cry about.  _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] This is fake right????? _

Hannibal was watching Will, rather than the video or the comments. He was watching the way Will was enjoying his meal -  _ himself _ \- the way he was relaxing into this, the way he was talking about this as though he and Hannibal were watching a football game and Will didn’t agree with the ref.

> _ [usrnamewat00] This is nothing like what you see on crime shows. _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] That’s coz it’s real. _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] It can’t be fucking real he’s cutting off his leg!! _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] He’s hard tho _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] who lol _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] He’s really hot, this can’t actually be like, snuff or whatever?? _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] /snuffuptheduff is where it’s at m8 _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] eww wtf _

Will clicked his tongue, amused, and tapped his fork against his teeth, eyes quick over the comments that appeared faster and faster as the watch numbers grew. At one point he barked a laugh and shook his head, when Hannibal looked askance.

“Found the resident agent,” he said. “‘Amalgamate’ is our codeword, just - doesn’t matter. He’s tracking, they have to be. Wonder who’s on shift right now… Liam did three days on three days off.”

Will finished his food before the video was even halfway through. By this point, he was unconscious and Hannibal was working away at removing his leg and stitching him back up. Will watched this with fascination, for the moment ignoring the comments in favor of seeing what his mind had locked him away from in the moment.

“God, you touch me so delicately,” Will murmured, turning to look at Hannibal with narrowed eyes before leaning in to nuzzle against his cheek. “You sure know how to flatter a guy.”

Hannibal ran his fingers through Will’s hair, tugging gently and then beginning the process again. Will sighed, happily leaning into the touch. “I handle you the way you deserve to be handled,” Hannibal said. He didn’t need to clarify. Will could fill in the blanks himself. 

> _ [ee-leet] I think I’m gonna throw up.  _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Pussy.  _ _   
>  _ _ [lilbitz1998] That guy did! _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] That guy got his leg chopped off he’s allowed to throw up.  _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] oh duck oh duck oh duck i think its real _ _   
>  _ _ ***haxxor1337 has LEFT THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Shut up and Go play with your dolls.  _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Lol byeeee felicia _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] God look at the dick on that guy. Kinky surgeon can get it any time he wants.  _ _   
>  _ _ [lilbitz1998] for real tho _

“You wouldn’t know how to handle him,” Will said dismissively. Hannibal hid a laugh in his hair. Will flared up at him, eyes narrowed. “He’d pass out the second you got your teeth in him.” If Will let him live that long. Missing leg or no missing leg. 

The chat only grew more excited when Will woke, pleased by a more traditional form of pornography. 

> _ [fuxmetexx] I wish that was me.  _ _   
>  _ _ [lilbitz1998] which one _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] which _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] I would’ve woken him up first, let him see what he’s getting.  _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] Beg all you want bitch daddy’s taking what he wants  _

“If only they knew the half of it,” Will murmured, eyes glazed as he watched Hannibal fuck him, watched himself squirm and shudder, hands twisting so hard in the restraints he was certain he’d been close to pulling free of some of them.

“I remember that,” Will added after a while. “I couldn’t tell which way was up, you felt so fucking good I thought I was going to die.”

“Your heart was beating out of your chest,” Hannibal agreed, leaning nearer and kissing Will’s pulse that wasn’t so steady now either. “I thought I could part my lips and eat it up.”

“I would have let you.”

“I know.”

On screen, Hannibal pulled out of Will, head thrown back and body trembling with residual energy. Then he moved off screen for just a moment.

The stream went black.

The comments kept coming but Will didn’t care. He turned and set his hands on either side of Hannibal’s face and kissed him. It wasn’t demanding, but it was hungry. He felt Hannibal take his tray and empty plate and set it aside, along with the laptop, and groaned quietly when Hannibal shifted to crouch over Will instead.

He kept himself balanced above him, not hurting anything that could be hurt, and Will shivered.

“How long before you’ll fuck me?” he asked, biting his lip. Hannibal made a low, pleased noise and leaned in to kiss it free.

“As long as your patience lasts, I suppose.”

“It’s gone,” Will assured him, “It's been days, Hannibal, and I want you inside me. When I can appreciate it.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Hannibal warned, but he was already reaching for the bedside table. 

Will felt absolutely spoiled. In a way, he was. There seemed to be nothing Hannibal wouldn’t give to him, nothing he wouldn’t do. 

Except, Will suspected, one thing. But that could be discussed later. For now, Will wanted to be hurt and pleasured and brought to an agonizing peak. 

They were experts in each other by now. Hannibal was gentle as he spread Will’s thighs, each aching in different ways when they were jostled, bringing tears to Will’s eyes. The movement hurt, but the slow slide of Hannibal into Will’s body didn’t. He welcomed the stretch, the feeling of fullness, of being claimed. 

“Hurt me,” Will demanded. “Fuck me, Hannibal, let me know I’m yours.”

Hannibal moved with careful precision, but gave Will exactly what he wanted. If something hurt, Hannibal let it. He didn’t move aside to make the shift easier to bear. If Will gasped and clung to him, Hannibal fucked harder, dragging his teeth over Will’s chest and leaving marks behind that he’d return to suck against.

Will, for his part, left his own marks on Hannibal. He drew his nails hard down his back and over his shoulders. He tilted his head back, accepted every bruise Hannibal painted on him with his mouth, before grasping the back of Hannibal’s head and tugging him near to kiss bruises on him as well.

Above where a shirt collar would close.

Above where anything but a scarf would hide it.

Claimed.

Owned.

Possessed.

He cried out when Hannibal found his prostate, catching Will’s hips and sitting back to hit that spot in particular, over and over, hard, until Will was weeping with it.

“I’m gonna come!”

“Good,” Hannibal breathed, curling a hand around Will’s cock to stroke him, guiding him closer and closer. “I’ll taste your pleasure as I taste your pain and feed it back to you,”

Will whimpered, shaking his head but hardly in denial or petulance. He was floating again. Pain and pleasure and drugs and  _ Hannibal _ , just Hannibal.

“Harder,” he begged.

Hannibal used a hand on Will’s hips to drag him down into the next thrust, forcing a strangled sob from his throat as his amputated leg was shifted. Hannibal’s hand moved faster, thumb teasing just under the head, and Will came with a cry. He spilled hard over his chest, high up enough to splash over his throat. Hannibal licked Will’s come from his adam’s apple and fucked him through it, rough, torturous thrusts that had Will scrabbling to hold on to him. 

“Hannibal!” Will’s voice was a high cry, a desperate plea, for relief or for more, neither of them could be certain. Hannibal sank his teeth into Will’s shoulder, just as sweet like this as he was when prepared and cooked. He came with a low growl that sent shivers through Will, squirming with overstimulation and pain. 

When the waves of sensation ended and Hannibal caught his breath next to Will, Will reached for him. His fingers found Hannibal’s jaw, his cheek, the corner of his eye. 

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

Hannibal swallowed. “Will…”

“Hannibal.” Will’s eyes were narrowed, face drawn in serious contemplation. 

“I will consume as much of you as I possibly can,” Hannibal promised him, a terrible deflection for one who knew him as well as Will did. 

“But even then, you plan to keep me.”

“Never against your will,” Hannibal swore, “but I had hoped to convince you.”

Will sighed, turning his gaze to the ceiling. It was a lot to think about. He’d come here for a reason. “What do you mean by ‘as much of me as you possibly can?’”

“Every limb,” Hannibal replied. “Perhaps some of the non-vital organs.”

Will hummed, lips pursed together. He wasn’t  _ angry _ so much as pouting. He had expected to live a few days, perhaps a week if Hannibal had felt particularly sadistic, and now…

“Until I’m helpless,” he said, flicking his gaze to Hannibal. “And entirely dependent on you.” He watched as Hannibal swallowed but didn’t confirm or deny Will’s statement. Which meant it was true. Will snorted, bringing a hand to his face to tug his hair back from it. “You  _ are _ hot for it, when I’m entirely at your mercy. When you can do anything to me.”

“Will -”

“I would not have put myself at your mercy if I didn’t think about it,” Will interrupted him softly. “And dream about it. Even before we’d met in person, I would dream of your voice, a faceless man fucking me, claiming me, tearing my throat out or pounding into my body until it broke.”

He licked his lips and swallowed thickly, arousal clear when he looked at Hannibal again. “When were you going to tell me? When I had no limbs to hit back with?”

A look crossed Hannibal’s face that was not guilt,  _ exactly.  _ It was closer to avoidance, but he at least didn’t attempt a lie. 

“You manipulative ass,” Will laughed, shoving at his shoulder. “You thought, what, I wouldn’t notice? When you started drawing it out and eating me one finger at a time?”

“I intend to  _ savor _ you, Will, not waste both our time.” The insulted tone was betrayed by the smirk tugging at Hannibal’s lips. Will swatted at him again, half-hearted and exhausted. 

“Convince me,” he said. “Pretend I’m not already sold. Tell me why I should let you.”

“Because my mercy and my worship are sides of the same coin,” Hannibal murmured. He lifted Will’s hand, leaving kisses over the inside of his wrist. “Because you would want for nothing, because my adoration is yours to take. Because I would honor every part of you, and because when we’ve run out of things to take, every art piece going forward would be a paltry attempt to make a monument to your beauty.”

Will hummed, pleased, turning his hand enough to be able to skim his fingers over Hannibal’s face, knuckles tickled by the bare beginnings of scruff Hannibal had let grow out as he’d looked after Will.

“You’re monstrous,” Will told him fondly, accepting the kiss Hannibal bestowed on him when he leaned in again. “Absolutely monstrous.”

* * *

Their video continued to receive attention for weeks after they’d put it up. Questions about whether or not it was real, whether they could post proof that the man on the table was still alive, whether the  _ hunky doctor _ needed any help next time, or perhaps was looking for another leg to amputate.

Six people asked if he’d eat their cock, Will counted.

He’d expressly forbidden Hannibal from taking away that particular appendage until Will was for the grave.

Will’s stump had only begun to heal when Hannibal took the other leg.

They filmed this as well, Will’s pleas loud and aching as he struggled against the restraints and his cock grew harder and harder. He didn’t lose consciousness this time, but it was a close call. He was awake the entire time, eyes glazed with tears as he tried to watch the screen set up for him.

Arousal only gave up when blood loss forced it back, and it made a surging return when Hannibal fucked him screaming on the table. 

They built a fan club. They put the next to a vote: one of Will’s thighs, or an arm up to the elbow. 

Several of the requests were for Hannibal to ‘rape’ Will on camera again. They indulged that one regularly, and no one needed to know that Will was not a kidnapped slave, that he had come willingly and that once the camera was off, Hannibal bathed him by hand and whispered words of love against his skin. 

Will never felt a moment of regret, though he had a twinge of nervousness when their audience demanded his forearm. Hannibal had him practice holding a stylus between his teeth so he could work the tablet hands free, even with the second hand still a ways off. 

They moved, eventually. Hannibal had invested well and inherited even better. He retired to stay home with Will, and found them an isolated house in the countryside to set their next stage. A place Will could scream as much as he liked. 

Before he took the first arm, Hannibal brought home a dog. 

“She’s sixteen,” Hannibal explained as he set down the shivering tiny thing on Will’s lap and let her sniff about. “The vet said she’d been in and out from the pound and they were looking to put her down.”

Will’s eyes were so wide, he couldn’t even take a breath to answer him. He hadn’t held a dog against him for well over a year, now, perhaps two, and immediately the warmth returned of having something four-legged near him.

“Oh my god,” he managed finally, and Hannibal kissed his temple.

The little dog was a grumpy bitch, only a few teeth left in her mouth and one eye cloudy with cataracts, but Will loved her beyond words. She spent most of her time sleeping in his lap, snoring softly, little legs wriggling as she dreamed. Her tongue hung out the side of her mouth, and her bark sounded like a cough of a pack-a-day smoker.

Will loved her to pieces. He named her Polly.

When Hannibal took Will’s arm they really put on a show. He ‘forced’ Will to stroke him, to suck him through a hole in the hood, and then stretched his arm out past the table to quite literally saw it off.

What the camera didn’t see was the immediate surgery that followed, to stop the blood flow, to peel back the still-living skin to reattach it over the stump. The units of blood. The morphine.

That video broke their previous records. Will read the comments with a cackle as their chihuahua snorted against his neck and Hannibal stroked his hair.

“This one wants to know where you bought me,” Will said, tapping at the screen. “And you’ve got three new requests to rent me out.”

“When I run out of parts of you, we can eat them first,” Hannibal murmured in his ear.

Their next harvest wasn’t streamed. A culmination of all their time together, something to share while Will could still feed it to himself. 

Simple, elegant. Two thin slices of liver, Will’s for Hannibal, and Hannibal’s for Will. It was better than rings, better than any ceremony ever could have been. 

Hannibal brought home another dog, this one much younger. 

“Do I want to know how you got your hands on a service dog?” Will asked, visibly delighted. The dog could fetch, open doors, pull Will’s wheelchair short distances with a strap, a dozen more things that made Will’s head spin, options that had slowly become unavailable to him without Hannibal’s help. Not entirely independent, but he would feel less like a lump when Hannibal had to leave the house. 

“Money,” Hannibal said simply. 

The dogs got along well enough. Polly ruled the couch and anything Will sat on - and Will’s lap, of course - while Buddy made do with the floor and everywhere else. Will was smitten.

But not as in love as he was growing to be with Hannibal. Because he was, entirely. There had been days, early on, where he had lamented allowing Hannibal to take his time and keep him alive. There had been times when he was frustrated and exhausted and hurting and  _ angry _ but they passed. And even through them, Hannibal was always there, lavishing Will just as much love and care as when he was content.

Over the next year, Will lost the rest of his left leg and his entire right arm on camera. It was easy to tell the new fans from the old, now. There were several who seemed to be genuinely in love with either or both of them, and Will was happy to know that there was no way in hell they could find either of them.

The meat would be sour if they had to eat them.

On yet another day in yet another summer, Will was lying on a lounger set up in the garden, half in the shade and half out. Polly lay spread out beside him - too hot to lie on top - and Buddy roamed the yard looking for hedgehogs. Will was drifting, not quite dozing but not quite awake, and thinking about nothing at all.

Hannibal had set him up here, with a glass of water close enough for him to lean to, sunglasses, his iPad if he wanted it. Will wanted nothing but the sun on his skin, and Hannibal, whenever he was done with whatever task he’d set himself to now. 

When Hannibal roused him, it was with a gentle hand rubbing over his bare skin. Clothes were too tedious to put over Will’s body now, and he didn’t need them in their isolated yard. Blankets sufficed on colder days. 

“Mmm, more sunscreen?” Will murmured. 

“If you’d like.” Hannibal had that look in his eyes, that fiercely adoring look, overflowing with his love for Will. Will tilted his head to look at him over the rim of his sunglasses. 

“What have you been up to?”

Hannibal took Will’s remaining hand in his, feeling the ridges of his knuckles, the bones of his wrist. He lifted the hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the back. “Are you hungry, darling?”

Will grinned. “Always.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[ADMIN] My pet needs his rest. Thank you for joining us.  
>  ***TORSO SMUT #NOSNUFF CHAT HAS BEEN DISABLED_

When the lights came on, the creature moaned pitifully. It wriggled as footsteps approached it, squirming up onto the shortened stump of an upper arm. 

It was a man, or what was left of one, laid out on a blanket on a white tile floor. Both legs and one arm had been chopped off at the torso, and what was left of the fourth limb was barely a limb at all. 

The man had been zipped into a leather hood, sealing his jaw shut, muting and muffling any sounds he might make. Like this, he could not beg for help. He could not ask for mercy. He could only blink up at the long legs that stood before him with wide blue eyes. 

The site had watched this man and his transformation. They had watched him go from terror to bargaining, watched him learn to please the man before him for his own safety. Now, when his captor extended a hand, the man nuzzled against it like a cat, eyes watery and pleading. 

The captor never spoke, never made a sound, but the man seemed to know his every command regardless. He whimpered helplessly, flopping onto his back, his bare body exposed for perusal. 

If one were to ignore the blatant amputations he’d undergone, the man was in very good shape. His torso was slight, suggesting a svelte frame when he still had legs to stand on. A dusting of hair ran from his navel down to the thatch of hair around his cock, which stood at half hard attention already. There were bruises in the shape of bite marks around his nipples and all up his throat; his pulse hammered in the vein there. 

The quality of the video was always impeccable, one of the few on the forum that allowed one to zoom in and not find themselves drowning in pixelation.

Despite this, the FBI had had no luck finding the video’s source, nor in determining the identities of the two men.

The captor - known as The Doctor to the long time viewers, though he’d long ago foregone the white coat costume - gracefully knelt over the other’s frame, knees on either side of the man’s thighs, or what was left of them, and reached out to draw his palms in teasing, tickling touches down the length of him.

> _ [usrnamewat00] I remember when he still had his hands, he’d try to fight the guy off, every time. _ _   
>  _ _ [rebbelxXx] Wouldn;t you tho?? _ _   
>  _ _ [bigschlong999] Y are you even here if you find this gross. _ _   
>  _ _ [rebbelxXx] Never said I did just that i’d fight back, everyone in their right mind would. _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Weren’t you banned @bigschlong999 lol _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] n00b. _

The torso shuddered, squirming and arching up against the hands that had so long tormented him. The muscles in his stomach tensed, cock twitching between his legs. For several moments, nothing happened. Nothing significant. The captor touched his captive, occasionally tweaking a nipple between thumb and forefinger, and the other bore it with trembling and sweet little whimpers.

And then the other arched his own back, folding himself over his victim and taking his cock between his lips to suck. He didn’t wear a hood, at least, not one as restrictive as the leather, and if one were very eager, and zoomed in, one could see just the barest hint of tongue before it vanished beneath the thick vein of the captive’s cock.

Just enough fabric to hide his features, not enough to hide the strain of his victim’s erection as he bobbed his head. The torso twisted and arched with muffled cries, as if hoping to fuck up into wet, welcoming heat. 

The Doctor pinned him in place, teasing him with long, slow bobs of his head, lingering over the places that made his victim squeak and wriggle in place. 

The muffled moans grew in pitch and volume, until with a high cry, the torso arched entirely off the blanket, helped by a hand against the small of his back. 

The man was panting when the Doctor drew back, soft cock flopping wetly against his heaving stomach. The Doctor, still impeccably dressed and covered but for his smile, reached for his belt. 

The sound of leather through belt loops made the small man flinch. He squirmed helplessly on the blanket, using his one available limb to shove backwards and only succeeding in bunching the fabric up beneath him. 

The Doctor made a sound, a short, sharp  _ tss _ , and the man froze, statue still. The Doctor dragged him back into place. 

> _ [haxxor1337] You think he’s gonna kill him? _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Nah it’s been like five years lol _ _   
>  _ _ ***bigschlong999 has been REMOVED FROM THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [thAVOID] It’s been eighteen months ffs and what else is he gonna do with him? _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Fuck him _ _   
>  _ _ ***biggerfuckingschlongMOFOs has ENTERED THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Fuc k im _ _   
>  _ _ [biggerfuckingschlongMOFOs] Ffffuck him _ _   
>  _ _ [biggerfuckingschlongMOFOs] He gon fuck his ass  _ _   
>  _ _ [rebbelxXx] lol _

There was no lube, there never was, and he lifted his captive as though he weighed nothing at all, positioning him with stumps spread wide over his thick cock. If words were exchanged, the camera’s microphones didn’t catch them; they caught the short and sharp yell of pain as the hooded man was penetrated in one long, deliberately slow shove.

His limb smacked helplessly against the Doctor’s shoulders and chest until it was caught and twisted behind his back. The Doctor’s other hand pressed tight against his throat until he stilled, shaking, choking and struggling where he was held. Satisfied his captive would cooperate, the Doctor let his captive breathe again, setting that hand to his hip instead, and starting to guide the man up and down in his lap.

It was a grotesque facsimile of fucking; the limbless torso moved heavily and gracelessly, its head lolling down against the Doctor’s shoulder once in a while. A thin sheen of sweat covered him, making the arch of his back, the tension of his muscles, the goosebumps that came up against his skin all the more stark as he was forced to fuck down against the man who’d taken him to pieces.

> _ [forrestor69] God Id ride dat cock doe _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] Oh shit did you see the one where he cut the guy’s first arm off and then made him suck him off while he bled out on the table?? _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Way fucking hot _ _   
>  _ _ [doncallmeicallu] Haven’t found a pair as sexy to watch as these two _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] #snufflover _ _   
>  _ _ [doncallmeicallu] #gocrytomommyaboutit _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] Lol _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Lol _ _   
>  _ _ [forrestor69]Lololol _ _   
>  _ _ ***biggerfuckingschlongMOFOs has been REMOVED FROM THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Nah there was ages when they didn’t post and like I thought he’d finally killed him but then they were back and the Doctor was fucking chewing the kid’s hand off it was nuts _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] He sawed it off _ _   
>  _ _ [forrestor69] No he didn’t _ _   
>  _ _ [doncallmeicallu] He didn _ _   
>  _ _ ***totznotFBI has ENTERED THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [forrestor69] He fucking did you can’t chew through bone! _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] He chewed enough to make im bleed _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] Then used the daw _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] *saw _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] Lol _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] I bet they both get off on it  _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Wtf _

Despite the thickening of his cock, the man was less of a lover and more of a toy, bouncing brutally in the Doctor’s lap. The man cried out with every deep roll of the Doctor’s hips, shaking and sweating in his lap. 

> _ [usrnamewat00] He’s gonna come he always does _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] Told you they BOTH get off on it  _ _   
>  _ _ [forrestor69] Listen that’s the noice he makes when he comes _

The Doctor cupped the back of the man’s head, fingers curling over the smooth leather hood. He held the man like a lover and fucked him like an object, reaching between them to coax the man’s cock further into hardness. 

The man sobbed, shook his head, and then began to tremble. He spilled between them, shoving his hooded face against the Doctor’s shoulder as he cried. 

> _ [b00bikay] Told you so. It always comes.  _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] It lol _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Well it’s not a man anymore _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] He’s got a cock y’all _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] It’s pretty hot _ _   
>  _ _ [forrestor69] It’s a nice cock _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] HE HAS NO LIMBS FFS _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] So? _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] Get out lol _

The fucking continued, a brutal claiming, a reminder that this was forever, until the  _ Doctor _ decided it would end. It didn’t seem like it would, any time soon. It hadn’t for eighteen months.

> _ [totznotFBI] When d’you find em? _ _   
>  _ _ [axemenicely] Shut up I’m trying to watch _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] He’ll be at it a while yet, the guy has patience like a fucking psycho lol _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Why u still here then? _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Coz sometimes at the end he cuts something else off _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Maybe his cock lol _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] LOL _ _   
>  _ _ ***axemenicely has LEFT THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] ROFLMAO _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] I saw the fisrt one _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] No shit?? _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] Yeah the one where he cuts his leg off? The first leg, and makes him stay conscious for it. _ _   
>  _ _ ***axemenicely has ENTERED THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Wtf did he really? _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Yeah _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewt00] Yep _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] Yp _ _   
>  _ _ [axemenicely] Fuck _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] @haxxor1337 you chickened the fuk out pussy howd you kno _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Yeah and then he made this guy jerk him off with the hand he was amputating that day _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Lololol @haxxor1337 _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] @haxxor1337 pwned _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] Aksjfksjhg wtf??? _ _   
>  _ _ ***haxxor1337 has LEFT THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] Lol ur new _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Bahahaha loser _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] I’ve been here since the start??? _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Why are you surprised then lol they’re brutal AF _ _   
>  _ _ [slavemaster] Coz it keeps coming up in #snuff and is never snuff idk why i’m here _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Go home @slavemaster _ _   
>  _ _ [forrestor69] /snuffuptheduff @slavemaster for the good shit _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] I heard he makes the guy eat himself.  _ _   
>  _ _ ***slavemaster has LEFT THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ ***haxxor1337 has ENTERED THE CHAT _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Shut up _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] No seriously, i think he was in /cannibalcafe before the feds took it down _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] Pigs _ _   
>  _ _ [ee-leet] Lol _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] How do you know? _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] just a guess? _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] No i’m serious I swear it’s him! _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Y? _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] Coz someone was asking to be eaten on there and then someone else called the doctor replied to him and then the posts went offline. _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] No shit?? _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] Pics or it didn’t happen _ _   
>  _ _ [haxxor1337] It’s *offline* fucktard _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] It’s the *internet* buttmunch _ _   
>  _ _ [axemenicely] Lol _ _   
>  _ _ [tentapeen] Yeah i have em somewhere _ _   
>  _ _ [b00bikay] The fuck you have em _ _   
>  _ _ [usrnamewat00] DM me @tentapeen _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] Maybe he gets off on it lol _ _   
>  _ _ [axemenicely] me 2 _ _   
>  _ _ [fuxmetexx] me too _ _   
>  _ _ [totznotFBI] WE ALL GET OFF ON THIS IT’S WHY WERE HERE _

On screen, the Doctor shuddered through his own release, clinging to the thing that was once a man in his lap. It was clear the other was crying, shoulders jerking with hitched breaths and panicked shaking. For several moments, they didn’t move, the Doctor holding his victim close, the other having no choice but to be held.

Then the Doctor pulled back, eased the other off his cock and dropped him to the blanket again, face down this time, and walked out of frame.

The camera lingered, a long, agonizing shot of the man, the hitch of his breath, the shudder of his chest. Quiet, helpless sobbing. 

Then the lights went out, and the feed ended. 

> _ [ADMIN] My pet needs his rest. Thank you for joining us.  _ _   
>  _ _ ***TORSO SMUT #NOSNUFF CHAT HAS BEEN DISABLED _

Detective Liam Hart dropped his face into his hands with a sigh. 

Dammit.

He’d been close. For the first time in months, he had been close to getting even a screenshot of where this man could have possibly come from.

Someone had to watch these things. Someone had to check every frame of every video, read every comment, searching for clues. Someone had to keep trying to bring that poor man home. That someone,  _ usrnamewat00 _ , had been at it for eighteen months.

But it wore at him. Ate at him. Not as badly as some of the other things he watched, and he’d been desensitized as much as possible for this job. Not so badly as to make him quit, like others had. 

But badly enough that his therapist earned her money. Enough that he went home and ranted to his clueless, affectionate dog. 

He missed venting to an actual person. Graham had been good for that, when they ran into each other in the cafeteria. Before he transferred out of the state. 

There’d be another video in a few weeks. There always was. And the man still had a bit of arm left, which Liam knew would only last for so long. What kind of life would he have, if Liam found him?

Well, he’d have  _ a _ life, to start with. 

Liam turned to his recording program, starting the video and chat back from the beginning. He had work to do. 

**Author's Note:**

> Mardi Gras Effect - A term referring to the ability to mask one’s identity on the Internet as a way of expressing oneself freely and anonymously in online chat rooms and news groups, or to assume various personalities to lure people and commit murder.
> 
> True Crime Refs  
> [Lapotka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Lopatka_homicide)  
> [Meiwes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes) (also refers to Cannibal Cafe chatroom)  
> ["The Slave Master"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Robinson)
> 
> Chatroom names - provided by friends (most notably Ivy, Mel, and Ish)  
> Art and first chat room images - the amazing Alex!  
> Formatting - attempted by Whiskey!
> 
> FIND US ON [TWITTER](https://twitter.com/sw_writestuff) | [TUMBLR](https://stratsandwhiskeywritestuff.tumblr.com/) | [PILLOWFORT](https://www.pillowfort.social/StratsandWhiskeyWriteStuff)


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